Rochester Adams graduate set to compete at the Paralympics in Sochi

By
Dave Pemberton, The Oakland Press

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Most parents want their kid to live a normal life. Jamie Stanton’s parents were no different.

Despite the fact Stanton had his right leg amputated below the knee due to a birth defect, his parents were determined to make sure he felt like a “normal kid” and knew he could accomplish anything someone with two legs could.

A funny thing happened. Due in part to his parent’s determination, Stanton turned out to be anything but “normal.” He turned out extraordinary.

Stanton is a world class Paralympics skier. He’s already won multiple medals at World Cup events and has a chance to win an Olympic medal as part of Team USA in the upcoming Paralympics Games in Sochi, Russia.

“I give tons of credit to my parents,” Stanton said. “When I was growing up they didn’t treat me like I was disabled at all. I still have that attitude, even though I might be missing a leg, I don’t feel like I’m disabled at all. They were huge in my success in everything. My dad was my hockey coach growing up. He always gave me the extra push I needed to go out there and perform my best. I give pretty much all my credit to my parents. Having them raise my like a normal kid has helped me succeed at my highest level.

“They really had a great mind-set and I’ve adapted to their mind-set that I can do anything and there’s nothing I can’t do.”

Stanton’s mother Rae said they always encouraged Jamie to participate in sports and never shied away from having him compete with other kids.

“Ever since he was born and we found out about the birth defect, we kind of said ‘Okay we gotta deal with this,’ ” Rae said. “He should be able to do everything that any other child with two real legs can do and he did. He always participated in able-bodied sports growing up with his hockey, baseball, golf, skiing. He was never put into any special program for the quote disabled. He just always competed on a playing field with able-bodied people until he went out to Winter Park and started skiing with other amputees and other people with physical disabilities.”

Stanton started skiing when he was jut three and joined the ski team at Rochester Adams when he was freshman. He never competed in a Paralympics event until he was a junior in high school.

He entered the Michigan Adaptive Sports state championship and won by eight seconds, an astonishing feat in a sport where most races are determined by tenths or hundredths of a second.

Stanton won the event again his senior year and then got a call from Erik Petersen, who is the Director of Alpine, Nordic/Biathlon and Snowboard Competition for the National Sports Center for the Disabled. Petersen invited Stanton to come to the Paralympics training camp.

“I guess we didn’t really realize how good he was doing with the skiing until he competed with other disabled individuals in the Michigan State ski championships his junior year of high school,” Rae said. “That’s when we realized that he really had some specific talent with the skiing. That’s when he got the call from Erik Petersen and they brought him out West, and they were really impressed with his skiing ability even though he had quite limited training here.”

Around the same time, Stanton earned the Willie Schaeffler Scholarship to attend the University of Denver, which provides tuition and board for a disabled athletes to attend Denver.

“The Willie Schaeffler scholarship at the University of Denver has been huge to me,” Stanton said. “Before I knew about the scholarship I didn’t think there would be a way for me to pursue my dreams of skiing in the Paralympics and go to school. I just didn’t think it was possible. When the scholarship came along, it was a lot of hard work to get it, but I was proud of myself for getting through everything and being awarded the scholarship.

“I go to school in the fall and spring quarters. I take off the winter and move to Winter Park to train full time at the NSCD, which is the National Sports Center for the Disabled. The scholarship has given me so much to be thankful for. Being able to pursue my degree in finance and being able to ski, I didn’t think there was any way that it would be possible. The Willie Schaeffler scholarship totally changed that around.”

Once he was in Denver, Stanton’s progress was rapid. He competed in his first World Cup event in August of 2013 and won a bronze medal in the slalom.

“I went to see to kind of just see what the competition was like,” Stanton said. “There really wasn’t a lot of pressure on me. I was just going to kind of feel it out, do my best skiing and see where I placed. My second race, which was the slalom race, the course was incredibly tough and there was a lot of people that didn’t finish. I finished really well and skied really well that day, and I found myself up on the third place podium.”

Stanton took silver in the slalom and giant slalom in a World Cup event in Australia and has medaled at multiple NorAm events. He’s currently the No. 1 ranked men’s standing skier in the United States, which is a huge accomplishment at just 19 years old.

“My development has been incredibly quick,” Stanton said. “Starting on the Paralympic circuit just last year, full time, two years ago was the first time I started on it. But my progression has been so quick, it’s almost unbelievable. Here I was just a U.S. standing skier, now I’m winning several NorAm races, several NorAm podiums, several NoAm top tens. It’s crazy to think just within two years I’ve came from being almost nobody to being at the top.”

Stanton will compete in four events at the Paralympics, which begin Friday and end March 16. He considers giant slalom his strongest event and hopes to have a solid showing at his first games.

“For these games, I think my biggest goal is to go out there and compete my heart out,” Stanton said. “I really just want to leave everything on the hill and not have any regrets when I come home. I think this will be a learning games for me. I think I’ll probably go for two or three games. I think if I go with the mind-set that I can learn a lot coming out of it that will better prepare me for the next two games.”

Stanton’s parents, brother, sister and grandparents are all traveling to Sochi to root him on.

“I’m looking forward to having our family over there to support Jamie and to be part of the crowd cheering on all of Team USA and to support all the U.S. athletes,” Rae said.